By Caitlin Hawke

Below, by popular demand, is the 2016 Gallery of Ghouls with major hat tips to neighbor-photographers Ozzie Alfonso and Barbara Boynton whose shots along with a few of mine are all mixed up below.

The annual Halloween Parade and Party comes off each year thanks to Jane Hopkins who coordinates it with a team of dedicated Block Association board members and volunteers.  You'll see many of them disguised as regular neighbors below, but don't let the costumes fool you.  They put in a little elbow grease to make this come together. 

So this is a huge "Thank You!" to the Block Association's volunteers.  Not just for this evening designed for the kid in everyone, but also for all you do throughout the year!  For many of us, community is taking on ever greater importance in a changing city, and it's comforting to know you are all out there.

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By Caitlin Hawke

A day when a bit of levity is in order.  If only to quell nerves.

As you know, the Block Association keeps it local.  And so does this blog.  For the most part.  I try to resist the urge to go beyond the catchment. Sometimes I stretch. But I do so from the perspective of a neighborhood resident.  And what's going on outside of Bloomingdale matters a lot these days.  Today in particular.

Twitter is lighting up with incredible pictures of Upper West Siders turning out to vote.  And turnout in the catchment is just as impressive.  And with luck we're just half a day from knowing what comes next.

Because, finally it is our turn to smoke out the "elephant in the room" aka Election 2016.  The mammoth has been looming for nearly two years and the closer it has gotten, the higher the stress level has become.

But I have a guilty secret.  For a few weeks, I have been walking on air.  In an alternate or parallel universe, all has been well indeed.  Why? How could this be?

What I am about to say is a might controversial: Bob Dylan earned the Nobel Prize in Literature.  And I am ecstatic.

There.  I said it.  And it has nothing to do with our neighborhood.

Ha! (And here's the stretch.) Let me tie Bob to Bloomingdale in a parlor trick.  About a year ago, Jane Jacobs's son Jim authenticated a song co-authored by Bob Dylan entitled "Listen, Robert Moses."  Here's what Jim Jacobs has said, up to you to believe it or not:

So, for those who've been stressing about what's going on, here is one certain thing. Bob Dylan's lyricism is real and enduring. Yes, you might not like his voice. And yes, you might have trouble with his seemingly antisocial ways. You may still hate his gospel phase -- but in time that will all be reassessed.  He now stands to receive the highest literary honor our current civilization knows how to bestow.  And for the last few weeks, thanks be to Swedes the world over, it makes me thrill every time I think about it.

So as my gift to you, fellow Bloomingdalers, to lighten the allostatic load today, below is a crazy, racing, unhinged 2011 Grammy performance of Bob Dylan and his progeny.  Ingeniously paired up with Mumford & Sons, The Avett Brothers, a killer horn section and his own band, a mere five years ago Bob Dylan rocked out like the best of them with an electrifying "Maggie's Farm."

The younger bands set the tone with their superlative live performances:  Mumford's "The Cave" where strength is found in pain, the Avett's beautiful "Head Full of Doubt" make the aptest of preludes to the mythic "Maggie's Farm."  Whoever lined them all up in a row darn-tootingly knew what he or she was doing.  And if you read the lyrics of all three today, each of these songs will sparkle with meaning.

[Note: If you are receiving this post via email, the video below won't load, so you'll have to go here and stream it: https://vimeo.com/20567315 for full effect.]

While I recognize this music and these performances will not be everyone's cup of tea, could we agree that a 50-year-old song that resonates today -- and has in ways become even more pertinent -- performed by musicians two or three generations after its time in this incredible fashion is a feat unto itself.

And even if the times haven't changed.  Bob has changed the world. Or at least given it a good shake over the past 70 years he's been roaming around on it.

As he goes on, so do we all...bathed in his incredible wake.

Neighbors, see you on the other side of this November 8th!  And now to Bob. Enjoy!

By Caitlin Hawke

I'll leave the elephant in the room out of this for the moment as the clock ticks toward our quadrennial ritual of pulling the presidential lever. For this is the weekend we change the clocks, rolling them backward. Nowadays technology does this for most of our clocks...automatically. Making life "easier" and depriving us of this ritual. And in that notion, there is a parable. Technology. Moving backward. Keeping up with time and the times. 

Stay with me here because this brings me to neighborhood news that according to the New York Times yesterday, Bloomingdale is an unwitting character in a new unfolding scandal involving the New York City Marathon and doping of elite runners.  Indeed, you may have walked past surveillance vehicles on our streets as the investigation has spun out.

You can read the tawdry piece for yourself at the link above. Having followed cycling for a while and the vagaries of Lance Armstrong, I have a rubber-necker's fascination about doping in sports. So seeing it come right down the block and, worse, having it afflict my beloved notion of the once-great-but-now-royally-commercial-corporatized New York City Marathon, I wince. But come on, I say to my foolish self. It was hiding in plain sight all these years. And it is everywhere.

Doping. Some claim it's a fair use of technology. Others, an unfair edge. And still others, a public health hazard.

It is perhaps all three. And it is a harbinger of many things to come in this world where cheating is constantly rewarded at the higher ranks of our society and institutions. And technology is the abetting force.

It's enough to make you yearn for the days of Rosie Ruiz when cheating was so lo-tech it was quaint, far less lucrative, and relatively detectable.  (All state-sponsored Olympic game doping aside, of course).

Which leads me to reminding you to turn your clocks back on Saturday before you turn in. And to wishing any runners out there a race of your dreams in the city we love this Sunday. We know at least you will run clean.  Be safe and run on home rounding out of the southeast corner of Central Park, westward-bound with the cheering throngs on 59th Street, back into the Park in the shadow of the Gulf & Western Building's ghost. And up, up, up that hill, yes hill, to the finish line.

And of the elephant in the room wherein all these issues coalesce into one great mixed up mess, I say:  for the love of Bloomingdale, vote on Tuesday.  You can find your polling place right here.

See you on the other side of this free fall.


P.S. Look for the 2016 Gallery of Ghouls, the photo recap of the Halloween parade coming soon.